Is Theosophy a Religion?

HP Blavatsky @ Theosophy Trust

Is Theosophy a Religion?

"Religion is the best armour that man can have,
but it is the worst cloak."

 BUNYAN

It is no exaggeration to say that there never was  during the
present century, at any rate  a movement, social or religious,
so terribly, nay, so absurdly misunderstood, or more blundered
about than THEOSOPHY  whether regarded theoretically
as a code of ethics, or practically, in its objective expression, i.e., the Society known by that name.

Year after year, and day after day had our officers and members
to interrupt people speaking of the theosophical movement by putting
in more or less emphatic protests against theosophy being referred
to as a "religion," and the Theosophical Society as
a kind of church or religious body. Still worse, it is as often
spoken of as a "new sect"! Is it a stubborn prejudice,
an error, or both? The latter, most likely. The most narrow-minded
and even notoriously unfair people are still in need of a plausible
pretext, of a peg on which to hang their little uncharitable remarks
and innocently-uttered slanders. And what peg is more solid for
that purpose, more convenient than an "ism" or a "sect."
The great majority would be very sorry to be disabused and finally
forced to accept the fact that theosophy is neither. The name
suits them, and they pretend to be unaware of its falseness. But
there are others, also, many more or less friendly people, who
labour sincerely under the same delusion. To these, we say: Surely
the world has been hitherto sufficiently cursed with the intellectual
extinguishers known as dogmatic creeds, without having inflicted
upon it a new form of faith! Too many already wear their faith,
truly, as Shakespeare puts it, "but as the fashion of his
hat," ever changing "with the next block." Moreover,
the very raison d'être of the Theosophical Society
was, from its beginning, to utter a loud protest and lead an open
warfare against dogma or any belief based upon blind faith.

It may sound odd and paradoxical, but it is true to say that,
hitherto, the most apt workers in practical theosophy, its most
devoted members were those recruited from the ranks of agnostics
and even of materialists. No genuine, no sincere searcher after
truth can ever be found among the blind believers in the
"Divine Word," let the latter be claimed to come from
Allah, Brahma or Jehovah, or their respective Kuran, Purana and
Bible. For:

Faith is not reason's labour, but repose.

He who believes his own religion on faith, will regard that of
every other man as a lie, and hate it on that same faith. Moreover,
unless it fetters reason and entirely blinds our perceptions of
anything outside our own particular faith, the latter is no faith
at all, but a temporary belief, the delusion we labour under,
at some particular time of life. Moreover, "faith without
principles is but a flattering phrase for willful positiveness
or fanatical bodily sensations," in Coleridge's clever definition.

What, then, is Theosophy, and how may it be defined in its latest
presentation in this closing portion of the XIXth century?

Theosophy, we say, is not a Religion.

Yet there are, as everyone knows, certain beliefs, philosophical,
religious and scientific, which have become so closely associated
in recent years with the word "Theosophy" that they
have come to be taken by the general public for theosophy itself.
Moreover, we shall be told these beliefs have been put forward,
explained and defended by those very Founders who have declared
that Theosophy is not a Religion. What is then the explanation
of this apparent contradiction? How can a certain body
of beliefs and teachings, an elaborate doctrine, in fact, be labelled
"Theosophy" and be tacitly accepted as "Theosophical"
by nine-tenths of the members of the T.S., if Theosophy is not
a Religion?  we are asked.

To explain this is the purpose of the present protest.

It is perhaps necessary, first of all, to say, that the assertion
that "Theosophy is not a Religion," by no means
excludes the fact that "Theosophy is Religion"
itself. A Religion in the true and only correct sense, is a bond
uniting men together  not a particular set of dogmas and beliefs.
Now Religion, per se, in its widest meaning is that which
binds not only all MEN, but also all BEINGS and all things in the entire
Universe into one grand whole. This is our theosophical definition
of religion; but the same definition changes again with every
creed and country, and no two Christians even regard it alike.
We find this in more than one eminent author. Thus Carlyle defined
the Protestant Religion in his day, with a remarkable prophetic
eye to this ever-growing feeling in our present day, as:

For the most
part a wise, prudential feeling, grounded on mere
calculation; a matter, as all others now are, of expediency and
utility; whereby some smaller quantum of earthly enjoyment
may be exchanged for a far larger quantum of celestial
enjoyment. Thus religion, too, is profit, a working for wages;
not reverence, but vulgar hope or fear.

In her turn Mrs. Stowe, whether consciously or otherwise, seemed
to have had Roman Catholicism rather than Protestantism in her
mind, when saying of her heroine that:

Religion she
looked upon in the light of a ticket (with the correct
number of indulgences bought and paid for), which, being once
purchased and snugly laid away in a pocket-book, is to be produced
at the celestial gate, and thus secure admission to heaven. .
. .

But to Theosophists (the genuine Theosophists are here meant)
who accept no mediation by proxy, no salvation through innocent
bloodshed, nor would they think of "working for wages"
in the One Universal religion, the only definition they
could subscribe to and accept in full is one given by Miller.
How truly and theosophically he describes it, by showing that

. . . true Religion
Is always mild, propitious and humble;
Plays not the tyrant, plants no faith in blood,
Nor bears destruction on her chariot wheels;
But stoops to polish, succour and redress,
And builds
her grandeur on the public good.

The above is a correct definition of what true theosophy is,
or ought to be. (Among the creeds Buddhism alone is such a true
heart-binding and men-binding philosophy, because it is not a
dogmatic religion. ) In this respect, as it is the duty and task
of every genuine theosophist to accept and carry out these principles, Theosophy is RELIGION, and
the Society its one Universal Church; the temple of Solomon's
wisdom,* in building which "there
was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard
in the house while it was building" (I Kings, vi.); for this
"temple" is made by no human hand, nor built in any
locality on earth  but, verily, is raised only in the inner sanctuary
of man's heart wherein reigns alone the awakened soul.

Thus Theosophy is not a Religion, we say, but RELIGION itself, the one bond of unity, which is so universal and
all-embracing that no man, as no speck  from gods and mortals
down to animals, the blade of grass and atom  can be outside of
its light. Therefore, any organization or body of that name must
necessarily be a UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD.

Were it otherwise, Theosophy would be but a word added to hundreds
other such words as high sounding as they are pretentious and
empty. Viewed as a philosophy, Theosophy in its practical work
is the alembic of the Mediæval alchemist. It transmutes
the apparently base metal of every ritualistic and dogmatic creed
(Christianity included) into the gold of fact and truth, and thus
truly produces a universal panacea for the ills of mankind. This
is why, when applying for admission into the Theosophical Society,
no one is asked what religion he belongs to, nor what his deistic
views may be. These views are his own personal property and have
nought to do with the Society. Because Theosophy can be practiced
by Christian or Heathen, Jew or Gentile, by Agnostic or Materialist,
or even an Atheist, provided that none of these is a bigoted fanatic,
who refuses to recognize as his brother any man or woman outside
his own special creed or belief. Count Leo N. Tolstoy does not
believe in the Bible, the Church, or the divinity of Christ; and
yet no Christian surpasses him in the practical bearing out of
the principles alleged to have been preached on the Mount. And
these principles are those of Theosophy; not because they were
uttered by the Christian Christ, but because they are universal
ethics, and were preached by Buddha and Confucius, Krishna, and
all the great Sages, thousands of years before the Sermon on the
Mount was written. Hence, once that we live up to such theosophy,
it becomes a universal panacea indeed, for it heals the
wounds inflicted by the gross asperities of the Church "isms"
on the sensitive soul of every naturally religious man. How many
of these, forcibly thrust out by the reactive impulse of disappointment
from the narrow area of blind belief into the ranks of arid disbelief,
have been brought back to hopeful aspiration by simply joining
our Brotherhood  yea, imperfect as it is.

If, as an offset to this, we are reminded that several prominent
members have left the Society disappointed in theosophy as they
had been in other associations, this cannot dismay us in the least.
For with a very, very few exceptions, in the early stage
of the T.S.'s activities when some left because they did not find
mysticism practiced in the General Body as they understood
it, or because "the leaders lacked Spirituality," were
"untheosophical, hence, untrue to the rules," you see,
the majority left because most of them were either half-hearted
or too self-opinionated  a church and infallible dogma in themselves.
Some broke away, again under very shallow pretexts indeed, such,
for instance, as "because Christianity (to say Churchianity,
or sham Christianity, would be more just) was too roughly
handled in our magazines"  just as if other fanatical religions
were ever treated any better or upheld! Thus, all those who
left have done well to leave, and have never been regretted.

Furthermore, there is this also to be added: the number of those
who left can hardly be compared with the number of those who found
everything they had hoped for in Theosophy. Its doctrines, if
seriously studied, call forth, by stimulating one's reasoning
powers and awakening the inner in the animal man, every
hitherto dormant power for good in us, and also the perception
of the true and the real, as opposed to the false and the unreal.
Tearing off with no uncertain hand the thick veil of dead-letter
with which every old religious scriptures were cloaked, scientific
Theosophy, learned in the cunning symbolism of the ages, reveals
to the scoffer at old wisdom the origin of the world's faiths
and sciences. It opens new vistas beyond the old horizons of crystallized,
motionless and despotic faiths; and turning blind belief into
a reasoned knowledge founded on mathematical laws  the only exact science  it demonstrates to him under profounder and more
philosophical aspects the existence of that which, repelled by
the grossness of its dead-letter form, he had long since abandoned
as a nursery tale. It gives a clear and well-defined object, an
ideal to live for, to every sincere man or woman belonging to
whatever station in Society and of whatever culture and degree
of intellect. Practical Theosophy is not one Science, but
embraces every science in life, moral and physical. It may, in
short, be justly regarded as the universal "coach,"
a tutor of world-wide knowledge and experience, and of an erudition
which not only assists and guides his pupils toward a successful
examination for every scientific or moral service in earthly life,
but fits them for the lives to come, if those pupils will
only study the universe and its mysteries within themselves, instead of studying them through the spectacles of orthodox
science and religions.

And let no reader misunderstand these statements. It is Theosophy per se, not any individual member of the Society or even
Theosophist, on whose behalf such a universal omniscience is claimed.
The two  Theosophy and the Theosophical Society  as a vessel and
the olla podrida it contains, must not be confounded. One
is, as an ideal, divine Wisdom, perfection itself; the
other a poor, imperfect thing, trying to run under, if
not within, its shadow on Earth. No man is perfect; why,
then, should any member of the T.S. be expected to be a paragon
of every human virtue? And why should the whole organization be
criticized and blamed for the faults, whether real or imaginary,
of some of its "Fellows," or even its Leaders? Never
was the Society, as a concrete body, free from blame or
sin  errare humanumest  nor were any of
its members. Hence, it is rather those members most of whom will
not be led by theosophy, that ought to be blamed. Theosophy is
the soul of its Society; the latter the gross and imperfect body
of the former. Hence, those modern Solomons who will sit in the Judgment Seat and talk of that they know nothing
about, are invited before they slander theosophy or any theosophists
to first get acquainted with both, instead of ignorantly calling
one a "farrago of insane beliefs" and the other a "sect
of impostors and lunatics."

Regardless of this, Theosophy is spoken of by friends and foes
as a religion when not a sect. Let us see how the special
beliefs which have become associated with the word have come to
stand in that position, and how it is that they have so good a
right to it that none of the leaders of the Society have ever
thought of disavowing their doctrines.

We have said that we believed in the absolute unity of nature.
Unity implies the possibility for a unit on one plane, to come
into contact with another unit on or from another plane. We believe
in it.

The just published "Secret Doctrine" will show what
were the ideas of all antiquity with regard to the primeval
instructors of primitive man and his three earlier races.
The genesis of that WISDOM-RELIGION in which all theosophists believe, dates from that period. So-called
"Occultism," or rather Esoteric Science, has to be traced
in its origin to those Beings who, led by Karma, have incarnated
in our humanity, and thus struck the key-note of that secret Science
which countless generations of subsequent adepts have expanded
since then in every age, while they checked its doctrines by personal
observation and experience. The bulk of this knowledge  which
no man is able to possess in its fullness  constitutes that which
we now call Theosophy or "divine knowledge." Beings
from other and higher worlds may have it entire; we can have it
only approximately.

Thus, unity of everything in the universe implies and justifies
our belief in the existence of a knowledge at once scientific,
philosophical and religious, showing the necessity and actuality
of the connection of man and all things in the universe with each
other; which knowledge, therefore, becomes essentially RELIGION,
and must be called in its integrity and universality by the distinctive
name of WISDOM-RELIGION.

It is from this WISDOM-RELIGION that all the various individual "Religions" (erroneously
so called) have sprung, forming in their turn offshoots and branches,
and also all the minor creeds, based upon and always originated
through some personal experience in psychology. Every such religion,
or religious offshoot, be it considered orthodox or heretical,
wise or foolish, started originally as a clear and unadulterated
stream from the Mother-Source. The fact that each became in time
polluted with purely human speculations and even inventions, due
to interested motives, does not prevent any from having been pure
in its early beginnings. There are those creeds  we shall not
call them religions  which have now been overlaid with the human
element out of all recognition; others just showing signs of early
decay; not one that escaped the hand of time. But each and all
are of divine, because natural and true origin; aye  Mazdeism,
Brahmanism, Buddhism as much as Christianity. It is the dogmas
and human element in the latter which led directly to modern Spiritualism.

Of course, there will be an outcry from both sides, if
we say that modern Spiritualism per se, cleansed
of the unhealthy speculations which were based on the dicta of
two little girls and their very unreliable "Spirits"  is,
nevertheless, far more true and philosophical than any church
dogma. Carnalised Spiritualism is now reaping its Karma.
Its primitive innovators, the said "two little girls"
from Rochester, the Mecca of modern Spiritualism, have grown up
and turned into old women since the first raps produced by them
have opened wide ajar the gates between this and the other world.
It is on their "innocent" testimony that the elaborate
scheme of a sidereal Summer-land, with its active astral population
of "Spirits," ever on the wing between their "Silent
Land" and our very loud-mouthed, gossiping earth  has been
started and worked out. And now the two female Mahommeds of Modern
Spiritualism have turned self-apostates and play false to the
"philosophy" they have created, and have gone over to
the enemy. They expose and denounce practical Spiritualism
as the humbug of the ages. Spiritualists  (save a handful of fair
exceptions)  have rejoiced and sided with our enemies and
slanderers, when these, who had never been Theosophists, played
us false and showed the cloven foot denouncing the Founders of
the Theosophical Society as frauds and impostors. Shall the Theosophists
laugh in their turn now that the original "revealers"
of Spiritualism have become its "revilers"? Never! for
the phenomena of Spiritualism are facts, and the treachery of
the "Fox girls" only makes us feel new pity for all
mediums, and confirms, before the whole world, our constant declaration
that no medium can be relied upon. No true theosophist will ever
laugh, or far less rejoice, at the discomfiture even of an opponent.
The reason for it is simple: 

Because we know that beings from other, higher worlds do confabulate
with some elect mortals now as ever; though now far
more rarely than in the days of old, as mankind becomes with every
civilized generation worse in every respect.

Theosophy  owing, in truth, to the levée in arms of
all the Spiritualists of Europe and America at the first words
uttered against the idea that every communicating intelligence is necessarily the Spirit of some ex-mortal from this
earth  has not said its last word about Spiritualism and "Spirits."
It may one day. Meanwhile, an humble servant of theosophy, the
Editor, declares once more her belief in Beings, grander, wiser,
nobler than any personal God, who are beyond any "Spirits
of the dead," Saints, or winged Angels, who, nevertheless, do condescend in all and every age to occasionally overshadow
rare sensitives  often entirely unconnected with Church, Spiritualism
or even Theosophy. And believing in high and holy Spiritual Beings,
she must also believe in the existence of their opposites  lower
"spirits," good, bad and indifferent. Therefore does
she believe in spiritualism and its phenomena, some of which are
so repugnant to her.

This, as a casual remark and a digression, just to show that Theosophy
includes Spiritualism  as it should be, not as it is  among its
sciences, based on knowledge and the experience of countless ages.
There is not a religion worthy of the name which has been started
otherwise than in consequence of such visits from Beings
on the higher planes.

Thus were born all prehistoric, as well as all the historic religions,
Mazdeism and Brahmanism, Buddhism and Christianity, Judaism, Gnosticism
and Mahomedanism; in short every more or less successful "ism."
All are true at the bottom, and all are false on their surface.
The Revealer, the artist who impressed a portion of the Truth
on the brain of the Seer, was in every instance a true artist,
who gave out genuine truths; but the instrument proved also, in
every instance, to be only a man. Invite Rubenstein and
ask him to play a sonata of Beethoven on a piano left to self-tuning, one-half of the keys of which are in chronic paralysis, while
the wires hang loose; then see whether, the genius of the
artist notwithstanding, you will be able to recognize the sonata.
The moral of the fabula is that a man  let him be the greatest
of mediums or natural Seers  is but a man; and man left to his
own devices and speculations must be out of tune with absolute
truth, while even picking up some of its crumbs. For Man is but
a fallen Angel, a god within, but having an animal brain
in his head, more subject to cold and wine fumes while in company
with other men on Earth, than to the faultless reception of divine
revelations.

Hence the multi-coloured dogmas of the churches. Hence also the
thousand and one "philosophies" so-called (some contradictory,
theosophical theories included); and the variegated "Sciences"
and schemes, Spiritual, Mental, Christian and Secular; Sectarianism
and bigotry, and especially the personal vanity and self-opinionatedness
of almost every "Innovator" since the mediæval
ages. These have all darkened and hidden the very existence of TRUTH  the common root of all. Will our critics
imagine that we exclude theosophical teachings from this nomenclature?
Not at all. And though the esoteric doctrines which our Society
has been and is expounding, are not mental or spiritual impressions from some "unknown, from above," but the fruit of teachings given to us by living men, still,
except that which was dictated and written out by those Masters
of Wisdom themselves, these doctrines may be in many cases as
incomplete and faulty as any of our foes would desire it. The
"Secret Doctrine"  a work which gives out all that can
be given out during this century, is an attempt to lay bare in
part the common foundation and inheritance of all  great and
small religious and philosophical schemes. It was found indispensable
to tear away all this mass of concreted misconceptions and prejudice
which now hides the parent trunk of (a) all the great world-religions;
(b) of the smaller sects; and (c) of Theosophy as it stands now  however
veiled the great Truth, by ourselves and our limited knowledge.
The crust of error is thick, laid on by whatever hand; and because
we personally have tried to remove some of it, the effort
became the standing reproach against all theosophical writers
and even the Society. Few among our friends and readers have failed
to characterize our attempt to expose error in the Theosophist and Lucifer as "very uncharitable attacks on Christianity,"
"untheosophical assaults," etc., etc. Yet these are
necessary, nay, indispensable, if we wish to plough up at least approximate truths. We have to lay things bare, and are
ready to suffer for it  as usual. It is vain to promise to give truth, and then leave it mingled with error out of mere faint-heartedness.
That the result of such policy could only muddy the stream of
facts is shown plainly. After twelve years of incessant labour
and struggle with enemies from the four quarters of the globe,
notwithstanding our four theosophical monthly journals  the Theosophist,
Path, Lucifer, and the French Lotus  our wish-washy,
tame protests in them, our timid declarations, our "masterly
policy of inactivity," and playing at hide-and-seek in the
shadow of dreary metaphysics, have only led to Theosophy being
seriously regarded as a religious SECT. For
the hundredth time we are told  "What good is Theosophy doing?"
and "See what good the Churches are doing!"

Nevertheless, it is an averred fact that mankind is not a whit
better in morality, and in some respects ten times worse now,
than it ever was in the days of Paganism. Moreover, for the last
half century, from that period when Freethought and Science got
the best of the Churches  Christianity is yearly losing far more
adherents among the cultured classes than it gains proselytes
in the lower strata, the scum of Heathendom. On the other
hand, Theosophy has brought back from Materialism and blank despair
to belief (based on logic and evidence) in man's divine Self,
and the immortality of the latter, more than one of those whom
the Church has lost through dogma, exaction of faith and tyranny.
And, if it is proven that Theosophy saves one man only in a thousand
of those the Church has lost, is not the former a far higher factor
for good than all the missionaries put together?

Theosophy, as repeatedly declared in print and viva voce by its members and officers, proceeds on diametrically opposite
lines to those which are trodden by the Church; and Theosophy
rejects the methods of Science, since her inductive methods can
only lead to crass materialism. Yet, de facto, Theosophy
claims to be both "RELIGION" and
"SCIENCE," for theosophy is the
essence of both. It is for the sake and love of the two divine
abstractions  i.e., theosophical religion and science,
that its Society has become the volunteer scavenger of
both orthodox religion and modern science; as also the relentless
Nemesis of those who have degraded the two noble truths to their
own ends and purposes, and then divorced each violently from the
other, though the two are and must be one. To prove this
is also one of our objects in the present paper.

The modern Materialist insists on an impassable chasm between
the two, pointing out that the "Conflict between Religion
and Science" has ended in the triumph of the latter and the
defeat of the first. The modern Theosophist refuses to see, on
the contrary, any such chasm at all. If it is claimed by both
Church and Science that each of them pursues the truth and nothing
but the truth, then either one of them is mistaken, and accepts
falsehood for truth, or both. Any other impediment to their reconciliation
must be set down as purely fictitious. Truth is one, even
if sought for or pursued at two different ends. Therefore, Theosophy
claims to reconcile the two foes. It premises by saying that the true spiritual and primitive Christian religion is, as
much as the other great and still older philosophies that preceded
it  the light of Truth  "the life and the light of
men."

But so is the true light of Science. Therefore, darkened
as the former is now by dogmas examined through glasses smoked
with the superstitions artificially produced by the Churches,
this light can hardly penetrate and meet its sister ray in a science,
equally as cobwebbed by paradoxes and the materialistic sophistries
of the age. The teachings of the two are incompatible, and cannot
agree so long as both Religious philosophy and the Science of
physical and external (in philosophy, false) nature, insist
upon the infallibility of their respective "will-o'-the wisps."
The two lights, having their beams of equal length in the matter
of false deductions, can but extinguish each other and produce
still worse darkness. Yet, they can be reconciled on the condition
that both shall clean their houses, one from the human
dross of the ages, the other from the hideous excrescence
of modern materialism and atheism. And as both decline, the most
meritorious and best thing to do is precisely what Theosophy alone
can and will do: i.e., point out to the innocents
caught by the glue of the two waylayers  verily two dragons of
old, one devouring the intellects, the other the souls of men  that
their supposed chasm is but an optical delusion; that, far from
being one, it is but an immense garbage mound respectively erected
by the two foes, as a fortification against mutual attacks.

Thus, if theosophy does no more than point out and seriously draw
the attention of the world to the fact that the supposed disagreement
between religion and science is conditioned, on the one hand by
the intelligent materialists rightly kicking against absurd human
dogmas, and on the other by blind fanatics and interested churchmen
who, instead of defending the souls of mankind, fight simply tooth
and nail for their personal bread and butter and authority  why,
even then, theosophy will prove itself the saviour of mankind.

And now we have shown, it is hoped, what real Theosophy is, and
what are its adherents. One is divine Science and a code of Ethics
so sublime that no theosophist is capable of doing it justice;
the others weak but sincere men. Why, then, should Theosophy ever
be judged by the personal shortcomings of any leader or member
of our 150 branches? One may work for it to the best of his ability,
yet never raise himself to the height of his call and aspiration.
This is his or her misfortune, never the fault of Theosophy, or
even of the body at large. Its Founders claim no other merit than
that of having set the first theosophical wheel rolling. If judged
at all they must be judged by the work they have done, not by
what friends may think or enemies say of them. There is no room
for personalities in a work like ours; and all must be
ready, as the Founders are, if needs be, for the car of Jaggennath
to crush them individually for the good of all. It
is only in the days of the dim Future, when death will have laid
his cold hand on the luckless Founders and stopped thereby their
activity, that their respective merits and demerits, their good
and bad acts and deeds, and their theosophical work will have
to be weighed on the Balance of Posterity. Then only, after the
two scales with their contrasted loads have been brought to an
equipoise, and the character of the net result left over has become
evident to all in its full and intrinsic value, then only shall
the nature of the verdict passed be determined with anything like
justice. At present, except in India, those results are too scattered
over the face of the earth, too much limited to a handful of individuals
to be easily judged. Now, these results can hardly be perceived,
much less heard of amid the din and clamour made by our teeming
enemies, and their ready imitators  the indifferent. Yet however
small, if once proved good, even now every man who has at heart
the moral progress of humanity, owes his thankfulness to Theosophy
for those results. And as Theosophy was revived and brought before
the world, viâ its unworthy servants, the "Founders,"
if their work was useful, it alone must be their vindicator, regardless
of the present state of their balance in the petty cash accounts
of Karma, wherein social "respectabilities" are entered
up.

Lucifer, November, 1888
H. P. Blavatsky

* Whose 700 wives and 300 concubines, by the bye,
are merely the personations of man's attributes, feelings, passions
and his various occult powers: the Kabalistic numbers 7 and 3
showing it plainly. Solomon himself, moreover, being, simply,
the emblem of SOL  the "Solar Initiate" or the Christ-Sun,
is a variant of the Indian "Vikarttana" (the Sun) shorn
of his beams by Viswakarma, his Hierophant-Initiator, who thus
shears the Chrestos candidate for initiation of his
golden radiance and crowns him with a dark, blackened aureole  the
"crown of thorns." (See the "Secret Doctrine"
for full explanation.) Solomon was never a living man. As described
in Kings, his life and works are an allegory on the trials
and glory of Initiation. back to text